A Friday Night for Myself and Others

One of the reasons I feel weird about being the center of attention for partying is that I'm apparently meant to make decisions for our own fun.  I don't like making the decisions and in any case, most of them get ignored if they don't make people happy. 
Anyway, so we were at our favorite restaurant, and we were thinking of moving on to somewhere else.  But I'm not much of a partier, so I didn't know where to go.  Claire was being particularly annoying about it.  Finally, Jenny stepped in and saved the day and was nice enough to suggest a particular place. 
When we got there, Ruth and I used the bathroom, and we both got a drink from the bar.  We were perfectly happy to just talk to each other.  Ruth was leaving for a while, and I know that I'm going to miss her dearly.  It was our last night together. 
Two men approached our group.  Neither of them were particularly attractive.  The first guy, who has a beard, was a jerk.  When I talked to him about my current employment situation, he was totally judgemental and unkind.  And then he also berated a recent decision I had made.  Part of wished I could explain my decision, but how to even begin?  All of my decisions reach back into my personal history; even deciding where the genesis of a decision came from is hard to decide.  I could have explained about all the reasons, but it would be a long story, and he had already demonstrated a lack of care for my personal feelings.  No thanks.  No way was I going home with this guy.
His friend seemed sweet enough, though a bit naive.  I liked him alright.  If he didn't have such a crap friend, I might have been willing to give him more of a chance.
They were both in finance, which later on made Ruth just cringe and complain.  "Ack!  Finance.  So boring."  I had to concur.  What could girls like Ruth and I have in common with someone like that? 
Jenny and Claire were both really liking these guys for reasons I never quite figured out.  The guys bought us cheap beer, which was totally crap. 
As I was standing there, finishing the beer up, so man at the bar told me I could have a drink that had been left there next to him.  He felt the need to tell me no one had taken it and that it wasn't drugged, which made me disinterested. 
Eventually, Ruth and decided to go home, and off we went, leaving Claire and Jenny.  We walked down the street, Ruth leading the way, as I wasn't totally sure I knew where we were going.  Ruth wanted to get some McDonald's before we went back home, and I reluctantly agreed.  The only time I seem to eat McDonald's is when I am with Ruth, who seems to prefer it as "drunk food." 
This time, ordering wasn't nearly as painful.  Ruth got herself some burger and fries and a massive drink, and we trooped back home.  We went to sit in the lounge.  Ruth didn't want to wake Hayley, her roommate, up, and we ate out there. 
There was a Norwegian girl sitting there when we came in, which surprised me because we usually are left alone there that late on Friday nights.  She talked to us about how much she hated old women, which actually sort of bothered me.  There was nothing about this young woman that I found all that impressive, and why she felt the need to hate on old women and things about them I don't generally find that terrible, really confuses me.  Ruth and I exchanged some of our patented looks. 
Eventually, we went our separate ways to go to bed.  It was around three in the morning before I finally went to bed.
I got about around nine fifteen the next morning, and I was surprisingly okay.  In fact, I felt almost great.   The only thing that wasn't so good was that I was possibly still drunk.  When I first woke up, I still had that swimming feeling that comes with being drunk. 
I had breakfast with Hayley and Ruth.  I couldn't seem to stomach my omelet, so I gave up on it.  Ruth informed me of what had happened to Claire and Jenny the rest of the night.  Apparently, Claire and Jenny went to another bar, and Jane tried to buy pot from someone.  Claire would not allow this to happen and dragged Jenny home.  Apparently Jenny refused to talk to Claire the rest of the way home.  They got home sometime between five and six. 
(Even later on, Jane would claim that she didn't remember any of this, though Claire certainly did.  She also was so drunk that she didn't get up all Saturday.) 
I had to work Saturday.  I usually don't, but as I was walking to work, I was struck by how nice of a day it was shaping up to be.  I walked down the street, admiring the sunshine and the warmth and the air, which felt strangely clear and fresh and almost as if it had never been used before.  It was relatively quiet, but there were people around, already out enjoying the day like I was. 
I ended up at work way earlier than necessary.  It took me a while to figure out where I needed to go, but once I did, seeing my coworker wasn't around, I sat down and waited for him.  As I sat there, being awkward, two other people at the table next to me were setting up.  A few even talked to me, saying nice things. 
One of the nice people was named Craig.  He came over to talk to me.  He said he knew my coworker, that he had seen him the night before.  "He had an empty bottle of wine." 
This particular coworker doesn't strike me as the kind to drink wine, but it sort of put an interesting image in my mind.  Sounded like he a Friday night similar to mine. 
Anyway, that's why he was late. 

Claire's Birthday Dinner

I was talking to one of Claire's friends, named Chris.  He was telling me about his hometown, how everyone muttered and how he had taken up speaking fast but that he didn't really have an inbetween speaking speed. 
"You don't have to perform for me," I said, referencing the fact that he was an actor. 
"So just to be clear," I asked.  "Are you gay or straight?"
The other people at our end of the table heard us, and they went up in fits of laughter.  Both Vicki and Amanda admonished me for speaking to him like that. 
"She doesn't have a filter," Amanda said. 
I do too have a filter.  There are all sorts of things I don't say, and I suspect that people would be deeply scarred if they heard the majority of my thoughts.  In comparison with other people, who lack thoughts to say in the first place, sure, it looks like I am filterless.
I suspected that Chris wouldn't mind me asking, and he took it like it was totally normal.  "I wake up everyday asking myself the same question," he said. 
After a while, one of Claire's other friends came along.  He sat down at the table next to Chris and in front of me.  He was dressed as a hipster.  We chatted about the neighborhood and made fun of hipsters and how expensive the whole thing was.  As he was talking, his voice reminded me vaguely of someone's, and then it occurred to me that he sounded just like Kashif.  And then as we continued talking, I realized he didn't just have Kashif's voice but that same particular sweetness that I've only previously encountered in Kashif.  Too bad this young man was gay. 
He talked to me about singing, which he was apparently into, and about how everyone can sing, and about the business aspect of getting a job in singing.  He asked me what I did, and I said I was a poet. 
(As an aside, can I just say how impossibly hard I find the question of who I am or what I do?  I hate the idea of identifying myself as just one thing.  But at the same time, if allowed to, I would babble on forever about who I am and I suspect people still wouldn't know.) 

In any case, the young man was nice enough to be supportive, ask me who my favorite poets are (another question I dread and never seem to just have a good, truthful and concise answer to).  He told me he liked Sylvia Plath, and since I like her too, that got us both off and running.  We discussed the Bell Jar. 
He also was nice enough to make some suggestions for where I should go read my poetry.  He told me it was casual, and not to worry.  I really don't like to read my poetry; part of the reason I write is because of my aversion to performance. 

Maxwell had moved over to sit with us at that point, and he talked about his failed attempts at dating and how much he really wished he could be on Gossip Girl.  A lot of people probably wish they were on television shows, myself included, though Gossip Girl isn't the first one that comes to mind. 
Chris and I continued talking a bit.  He told me about how much he loved Joss Whedon, and guessing correctly, I asked if he liked Firefly.  (Shocker, he did.  When boys say they like Whedon, none of them mean they like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, what they mean is that they like Firefly.  Which would be fine but I wish they'd be more honest about it.)  He also said he liked Dr. Horrible. 

At this point, I mentioned to him that I wished someone would invite Whedon to work on Broadway, as I thought it would be interesting to see him work in a live audience setting, and this got the boy talking about a live production of Dr. Horrible he'd seen.  He went through everything with me, the actors, the singing, how Bad Horse was managed, how the lighting worked; it was very detailed and very boring, as I hadn't seen this live production.  (It was almost as bad as listening to Emily earlier that day rave about Darren Chris on Glee.) 
And then Chris mentioned he had a girlfriend. 
Oh Gods, why bother? I thought.  And I was a tad annoyed Claire had sat me with him with no indication that Chris wasn't single. 
Obviously, it was time to abandon ship. 

We talked a little more.  I asked him what it was like to work with Claire, and he said that she was his favorite person, and that of everyone he knew, he thought she was going to make it.  We chatted about superheros, particularly Spider-Man.  We ate our dinners, and Maxwell shared his chips with us.  (Good man.  There are few things I like better than food, and one of them happens to be free food.)  Then I went to the bathroom.  I made the move of leaving, but then was persuaded to stay, and sat at the other end of the table with Jenny, Tamara, and Ruth. 
Ruth was complaining bitterly to Tamara about school, who, possibly more bitter than Ruth about the whole thing, was whole heartedly agreeing with her.  We started talking about the waiter, who I've encountered a couple of times before at this place.  He is very talk, and somewhat built, with a little fat  on him.  But what I find extraordinary about him is his face, particularly his hair.  It's very dark and long, and in some guys, I find long hair very attractive, as with him.  He had the whole dark eyes thing to complete the look.  He looks very much like he should be playing in band, particularly bass or even maybe drums.  When we asked him last night, he said that he use to play football and that's all.
That's all, I thought.  Good Lord, you must be lying.  I can't imagine that he is only a former football player.  And, moreover, what the heck is he doing being a waiter at a restaurant?  Surely he must have some other goal.  I was hoping he would illuminate us as to that.  (Jenny joked later that he was an Amnesty International lawyer, which I would find totally acceptable, vaguely intriguing, and a surprising choice.) 
Then we decided to move on to our next place.  We walked down several blocks to a pub I had passed by multiple times but had never been in before.